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Henry David Thoreau

In the fall of 1850 Henry Thoreau embarked upon an excursion into the French-Canadian province of Quebec, with stops in Montreal and Quebec City. His reactions to the foreign country are mixed and ambivalent: he is critical of Canada’s Old World Catholicism, feudalism, and an alien British military presence while most of his references to America and Americans are favorable. But if one looks closely, positive reactions to Canadian society and negative reactions to American society do exist within the essay. A YANKEE IN CANADA is a study in paradox, the paradox being due to a man stunned by his only international experience. In this sense A YANKEE IN CANADA parallels Mark Twain’s INNOCENTS ABROAD in that both authors are experiencing culture shock expressed with all the elements of a mental twilight zone of grays, not just black and white.

Unlike the many facsimile reproductions available, this edition features a modern design that enhances readability. A YANKEE IN CANADA is now part of the Literary Naturalist Series and features a new foreword by noted literary scholar Richard F. Fleck.

WestWinds Press

The Literary Naturalist Series

A Yankee in Canada

John Muir

John Muir agreed in 1881 to sail aboard the Corwin, whose fruitless mission it was to search for the missing scientific research vessel Jeannette, which itself became icebound while exploring the distant and mysterious Wrangell Land in the higher latitudes of the Arctic. This cruise would afford Muir the opportunity to examine evidence of glaciation along the arctic coastlines of Siberia and Alaska and the harmonious lifestyle of Inuits and Chukchis, which was in the midst of disruption from the intrusions of the civilised South.

The Cruise of the Corwin: Journal of the Arctic Expedition of 1881 in search of De Long and the Jeannette

Posthumously published in 1864, The Maine Woods depicts Henry David Thoreau’s experiences in the forests of Maine, and expands on the author’s transcendental theories on the relation of humanity to Nature. On Mount Katahdin, he faces a primal, untamed Nature. Katahdin is a place “not even scarred by man, but it was a specimen of what God saw fit to make this world.” In Maine he comes in contact with “rocks, trees, wind and solid earth” as though he were witness to the creation itself. Of equal importance, The Maine Woods depicts Thoreau’s contact with the American Indians and depicts his tribal education of learning the language, customs, and mores of the Penobscot people. Thoreau attempts to learn and speak the Abenaki language and becomes fascinated with its direct translation of natural phenomena as in the word sebamook—a river estuary that never
loses its water despite having an outlet because it also has an inlet. The Maine Woods illustrates the author’s deeper understanding of the complexities of the primal wilderness of
uplifted rocky summits in Maine and provides the reader with the pungent aroma of balsam firs, black spruce, mosses, and ferns as only Thoreau could. This new, redesigned edition features an insightful foreword by Thoreau scholar Richard F. Fleck.

The Maine Woods

S. Hall Young

Samuel Hall Young, a Presbyterian clergyman, met John Muir when the great naturalist's steamboat docked at Fort Wrangell, in southeastern Alaska, where Young was a missionary to the Stickeen Indians. In Alaska Days with John Muir he describes this 1879 meeting: "A hearty grip of the hand and we seemed to coalesce in a friendship which, to me at least, has been one of the very best things in a life full of blessings."

 This book, first published in 1915, describes two journeys of discovery taken in company with Muir in 1879 and 1880. Despite the pleas of his missionary colleagues that he not risk life and limb with "that wild Muir," Young accompanied Muir in the exploration of Glacier Bay. Upon Muir's return to Alaska in 1880, they traveled together and mapped the inside route to Sitka. Young describes Muir's ability to "slide" up glaciers, the broad Scotch he used when he was enjoying himself, and his natural affinity for Indian wisdom and theistic religion. From the gripping account of their near?disastrous ascent of Glenora Peak to Young's perspective on Muir's famous dog story "Stickeen," Alaska Days is an engaging record of a friendship grounded in the shared wonders of Alaska's wild landscapes.